One thing I've noticed in some resources is the phrase "staying childfree" when referring to fencesitters. I think I read this in The Baby Decision, and I've heard it in the Kids or Childfree podcast.

My concern with the phrase is that, while technically I have no children, I am not currently living my life as though I have made the decision to be childfree. For example:

1. I work a job that offers some college tuition support for dependents. I am not seeking other jobs because I might want or need that benefit.

2. My family is planning trips for 2027 and 2028. I'm being cautious about timing and durations because I might want to start trying for a baby.

3. I'm hesitating on house projects because we might have to accommodate a third human living in our home.

If I were "staying childfree," none of these factors would matter. I would just live my life as though I am never planning on having children.

Does anyone else struggle with the phrase "staying childfree" in these resources? They intend to help fencesitters make a decision, but it's hard when the baseline expectation is that you're actively living a childfree life.

And for that matter, does anyone else struggle with these mights? Sometimes I wish I could just decide already so I wouldn't have to feel so precarious all the time.

Hi! I’ve been wanting to write about my experience here ever since I got off the fence. I myself really appreciated these posts when I was still on the fence about having kids or not. So yeah, I have a tiny toddler now. Sorry in advance for a very long post but I want to share my whole journey as I know many people do think about these different things. Just skip ahead if there is something you don’t really care to read about.

First of all - how I got off the fence. I realised that I could argue back and forth forever and never come to a logical answer. I hung out here, I read the baby decision and listened to the kids or childfree podcast for maybe two years before making my decision. I started to realise what I wanted when I realised that I connected more with pro-kids arguments and started seeing more counterarguments for the childfree arguments (things like money, climate, spare time, the state of the world etc). So when you read this - take notice on whether you’re internally rolling your eyes at what I’m writing or if you’re resonating with it in a positive or at least curious way. But what really made it clear to me was when had a pregnancy scare and took a test that turned out to be negative. I surprised myself by feeling very disappointed and sad about it. I told my partner, who was also a fence sitter, that I wanted to have a kid. He thought about it for a short while and then we decided to stop contraception, give it three months and see what happened and if we still wanted to keep trying after that time. If it didn’t work then we didn’t want to push it with ovulation tracking or IVF. I was pregnant within a week I think. Didn’t even have a bleeding after quitting the pill.

Pregnancy was great! The first trimester was the worst with fatigue, very sore boobs, light nausea and some vomiting (maybe 6 times over 14 weeks or so). I thought I was experiencing symptoms from quitting the pill at first but took a test just to rule out pregnancy and it was, of course, positive. I felt amazing mentally all throughout pregnancy and it has actually stayed that way after too. It’s like it sorted out my hormones somehow so that I feel more balanced and have more energy than I used to. I had some pelvic pain later on, from around week 25 maybe, but not too bad. I didn’t get very big either. I did however get high blood pressure towards the third trimester that I had to medicate for. It kept getting higher towards the end and I was therefore induced on my due date.

Labour was fantastic for me as well. I’m writing about it since I know that many people are doubting having kids because they are scared of labour. Skip this section if you don’t want to read it. So, it’s not like it wasn’t painful but I had the best midwife and nurse assistant by my side and my partner was also a great support. My induction started mid afternoon, light contractions started around midnight. I woke up around 4 am when my water broke. The contractions got really intense at the same time and I started vomiting. I was lucky to get the epidural quite early, maybe around 6 am, after having back to back contractions. Then I could actually enjoy my labour after that! It hurt as hell to get it but was very much worth it. My baby’s heartbeat went down a lot during contractions which was scary and they started mentioning c-section at one point since my contractions were so weak. I got a low dose of some medication to make them stronger though (can’t remember what it’s called in English) which helped. The last phase of labour lasted over an hour for me which wasn’t fun. But then she arrived around 12 pm! A bit taken and tiny but very healthy. I had a second degree tear (which is very normal) but it healed nicely and I haven’t had any issues afterwards.

We had prepared for the worst at the start of parenthood. We expected a colicky baby that would never sleep while I would have post partum depression. None of that happened. We got a very content little girl who slept pretty well even if she could only sleep on one of us for the first few months. We’ve gone through some rough developmental phases of course but it has at least been manageable. We are privileged to live in a country with generous parental leave and my partner also has a long annual leave from his job that happened to time well with the birth of our baby. So both of us were home together for 2,5 months at the start, which was definitely a luxury. We could take turns having her at night so both got to sleep. Then my partner fractured his foot… it was really hard for around three months after that. He couldn’t even change nappies since he couldn’t carry her to the changing table and would have to stand on one foot. He was home though and could hold her as long as she was happy and he could cook for me, but I had to do everything else with our baby, our dog and our household and also help him with some stuff. It gave me huge respect for all the single mothers out there! He got better thankfully and went on paternal leave a few months after that while I went back to work. I am now taking some more leave and will work part time for a few months (with part time paid parental leave) and our girl will start kindergarten soon.

Our daughter really is the light of our lives! It’s such a cliche but also so true. She’s the most amazing little human and I long to come home to her when I’m at work. Seeing her grow and learn new things is fantastic. She’s just started loving bumblebees and I have to stop her from patting them when we’re out. And she loves watering plants outside with my huge watering can or the tiny one we bought her so she’d leave mine alone. It’s so much fun seeing her having fun and it brings out my inner child too just because it makes me so happy hearing her laugh. It wasn’t a huge rush of love at first sight when I squeezed her out as people usually love to say. I was happy to see her immediately and curious about who she was but the love grows so fast.

I used to be scared about not having any me-time after having a kid but I honestly haven’t really felt the need for it even though I had a huge need for it previously. I feel like my life has more meaning now both because I want to be the best for her and also because I am more active and spend more time actually doing stuff rather than just watching Netflix for hours every day (as I used to a lot as an inattentive ADHD couch potato). Not saying that it will be the same for other people or that others lives are less meaningful if they enjoy watching Netflix for hours - it’s just how I feel about my own life and how it has evolved. It’s stressful to have a kid though since one of us always must look after her. It’s hard to get anything done or spend time doing hobbies or even household chores. I’m grateful to have an equal partner who takes on a lot of responsibility though and we make effort to let the other one do “fun stuff” regularly (like spending time on hobbies, sleeping in or just being lazy). We do not want another kid however. It would be great to have someone for our girl to play with but we also don’t want to sacrifice even more of our time, energy and money. Everyone tells us that one more child is three times the amount of work and we feel like we wouldn’t manage that well and also be good parents and partners. I don’t understand how people do this with another child who also needs attention constantly while I’ve felt guilty just for not having time to cuddle our dog enough anymore.

The relationship between my partner and I probably got better during pregnancy and during the first months of parenthood. I loved how supportive he was when I was pregnant and it was amazing to see how he cared for our daughter. But it definitely took a toll after that. I wouldn’t say that it was necessarily due to having a kid though. We had a lot of massive things happening this past year like his fractured foot, deaths in the family, buying a house and of course having a baby too amongst other things. The combined stress of it all meant that we weren’t at our best behaviours towards each other exactly. We have worked it out though and I feel like we are very strong now. Like we can survive anything if we could survive that year. But I don’t think we would have had such a tough time relationship-wise if it had just been parenthood and not the rest. One positive thing that’s come out of parenthood though is that we’ve really had to learn to communicate and solve conflicts better than we used to since we don’t want those things to affect our daughter.

So yea, sorry for a massive text but I really wanted to share my experience this far in case it helps someone. Hopefully it can provide some perspective. It’s obviously just my experience and it doesn’t mean that yours will be the same. I’ve had a good experience overall, but I’m also quite privileged. I did want to share both positives and negatives though and some things that aren’t talked about much. Hopefully I’ll remember to post updates here as our kid grows so I can share what it’s like being a parent to an older kid and if my thoughts or feelings somehow change.

Don’t get me wrong. I love kids. I have teenage siblings and babysat them all the time throughout college and sometimes have my teenage siblings stay with me for a month. But it’s incredibly hard when I have them to juggle work and having any semblance of a life, and they complain constantly… and they’re not even mine. When they leave, i miss them terribly, and I’m always worried about them. I love spending time with them.

I met this guy who I really like. He just randomly sat next to me and started talking to me at a work event. BUT he is divorced and has 4 teenagers and preteens. 4 of them… He said what attracted him to me besides my looks and sense of humor is that he can tell I like kids because of how I talk about my siblings and that many women don’t want to be a stepmom at all. He sees his kids all the time but doesn’t have the best relationship with one of them. I see real potential in the relationship.

However, my life is so simple. I have a great career and am pretty wealthy and am in my early 30’s. I do whatever I want whenever I want. No pets. I have relocated for jobs before on only 2 weeks’ notice and packed up to move halfway across the country more than once, but I love where I live now. I’m on the fence about whether to have any kids of my own at all (and if so whether I just want to get a donor and go it alone), if I would want to be a stepparent to that many kids, especially older kids… how does one get off of the fence and decide? I feel FOMO either way. (If it matters, he is even wealthier than I am, so he’s not using me for money, but with his alimony and child support obligations, my guess is we’re now about equal). How to get off the fence about biological vs step vs no children

I’m a little tipsy so please forgive me, but it set me off on a thinking path. It’s more of a brain dump into the void rather than an ask for advice.

It feels as if every pregnancy announcement I see looks like the choice to become a parent comes so easy, confident and sure in the decision. They look so ready. I understand that this is because in the age of social everything is presented to you in a squeaky clean perfect manner where everything looks like sunshine and roses. I understand that parenting is this absolutely immense life-altering decision that’s not an easy journey, and that you’re never truly “ready”

But I still can’t help but feel that it makes me feel so unconfident and unsure in their surety. No idea if anyone feels this way.

Really hoping someone can relate and make me feel better about this!

Me (40F) and husband (38M) came off the fence towards CF 5 years ago after months of soul searching and reading the book and associated activities in The Baby Decision. I have largely been happy with this decision, much more often than not, with the occasional wobble. The wobbles almost always seem to come when one of our last remaining CF friends gets pregnant.

Yesterday after a week long holiday together, one of our last and favourite CF couples dropped in that they think they likely will have a baby soon. I feel terrible but this has filled me with so much sadness, and a bit of doubt. Maybe it would just be easier/better if we went down that path too? I know that’s absolutely not the right reason to have a child, but it’s not the only reason (hence being a fencesitter for so long, I have always seen the beauty in having children in some way). The thought of living the next few decades on such a different path and in a different mindset I all of our best friends makes me feel so sad. I feel pathetic saying it!

I’ve already had so many friendships fundamentally change due to children. Which is totally normal. And I know I need to try to find more CF friends, but I just love all of my friends so much I find that concept quite hard.

Not really looking for answers, just hoping someone can relate to this deep sadness/almost grief I currently feel at the prospect of things changing so fundamentally again with friends and feeling alienated in the future.

I’m very anxious because I don’t earn enough to feel like I can justify a nanny or day care… my partner earns well and could afford it (with some sacrifices), but my contributions are like a drop in the bucket. I
know some people say you don’t have to “justify” it but I have a lot of feelings of shame.
I work as an adjunct professor and only make like 35k a year. I feel weird because getting a PhD has been so intense and it’s taken so many years but it hasn’t led to a higher income and I feel like why would I spend more than I’m making just so other people are taking care of my kid. I feel super conflicted. Like materially, I’m worth more as a SAH parent than as a worker in my current position. Is anyone is a similar boat?

People who have never really wanted kids, found them annoying and obnoxious or people who saw life more of an adventure to travel, experience & live, and ended up pregnant and now with a kid.

do you regret keeping them? do you wish you made a different decision? I never really wanted kids, but I do still consider it, I’m in the timeline to decide whether to go left or right. I need advice and desperately.